My Dakota Hawk

I stated in my first blog entry that I had built a Fisher Flying Products Dakota Hawk. There's a little history to that plane.

I went to Oshkosh 1996 - the same year that I finished my enlistment in the Navy. Oshkosh is the home to the Experimental Aircraft Association's Airventure. This is a weeklong experience - camping on the airport grounds, thousands of experimental and "spam can" airplanes fly in, vendors and dealers trying to sell anything that can be even remotely tied to aviation! It's the "Las Vegas Sin City" for the flying crowd!

Airventure is known for several weather extremes - hot, humid, downpours, lightning storms, wind, etc. And 1996 was no exception. It was HOT!

I was interested in building a single seat homebuilt airplane called the Minimax. The dealer for the Minimax had their booth right next to the dealer for Fisher Flying Products. And Fisher Flying Products had a high wing airplane right there, that provided a LOT of shade! So while I was hanging out, checking out the Minimax, I spent a lot of time sitting under the wing of Fisher Flying Products Dakota Hawk airplane.

After getting home from Airventure, I had money in hand to purchase the Minimax kit and begin building my own experimental homebuilt airplane. The Minimax really appealed to me because of it's all-wood construction, it's 3 axis controls, and it's low cost of construction. But I kept thinking about that plane that provided the shade for me. Hmmm... All wood construction, 3 axis controls, low cost of construction... And can carry a passenger!!!

Well, Long story short... I decided to build the Dakota Hawk.

Steep Learning Curve (painting an RV-7)

I've been prepping my RV-7 for paint over the past couple of weeks. There is a lot of fiberglass work, pinholes, cleaning and acid-etching, etc before the first coat of primer goes on! I've gone through a couple of tubes of red glazing putty (two-part! not the one part crap!). After putting the glazing putty on, 98% of it gets sanded right back off. The putty is used to fill small imperfections and dings, as well as fill pinholes in fiberglass. Seems like there is about a gazillion pinholes in all of the fiberglass components that come with the Van's RV kits. (shhhhhhh! don't mention the word "gazillion" around Obama. He might decide to spend it!)

Anyways, after filling and sanding, and filling and sanding, and filling and sanding, I finally got the surface to a smoothness that I could be satisfied with. Time for some paint.

I'm using Stewart Systems Aero paint, which is a water based poly. Here's a (sideways) picture of my horizontal stab, elevators, and fiberglass empennage fairing. Just finished the silver streak last night. After untaping everything, I found a little area on the elevator tips that didn't get enough coverage. The elevators were hanging - tip down - and I just didn't get enough coats on the tips. No biggie. Easy enough to touch up next time I spray some maroon...

Flying destinations (wish list?)

I've been reading a lot of various blogs, and see a lot of places that look like a lot of fun to visit. Problem is, how do I remember all of these destinations - maybe bookmark every website or blog? But then I would have to revisit every one of those pages to refamiliarize myself.

Anyways, I thought that maybe I could simply keep a part of my own blog dedicated to a)places I'd like to travel, and b)places that I have traveled. Hmmmm. Sounds like an original idea!

Stay tuned for some of my flying destinations!

First Entry

I've been thinking about creating a blog for quite awhile now. I've got several things going on that I would like to chronical.

For example, I'm building an experimental airplane - an RV-7. If you're interested in the world of experimental aviation, you already know what an RV-7 is. For the uninitiated, an RV-7 is an all-metal (aluminum) low wing, two seat fast, aerobatic capable airplane. As I complete the process of building, I would like to begin keeping a travel and flying log.

I also built and currently fly another experimental airplane - a Fisher Flying Products Dakota Hawk. The Dakota Hawk is a wood airplane, built with high quality aircraft spruce and covered with aviation grade fabric. It's not a very fast airplane. It cruises at about 90 mph, and is great for low and slow scenic local flights. I plan to video tape or photograph more of my flights around the Puget Sound area, into the Cascades, and around Seattle.

In addition to flying, I enjoy riding quads. I own a Suzuki Eiger 400, and my son rides a Suzuki 250 Ozark. Most of the time, we ride at Walker Valley, but we're looking for excuses to get out to some other riding destinations.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I purchased a 28' travel trailer. We've camped locally, done the Oregon Coast, and spent some time in Central Washington. This summer, we're going to spend a couple of weeks in Northern Utah at a family reunion. Great excuse to bring the quads as well!